It has been so good to share Morning Watch as a Camp community! Thank you for joining in, sharing, commenting, and settling into that spiritual rhythm with us.

We want to continue sharing the spiritual practices of Camp, so we’d like to invite you to read a gospel with us, just like DeSoto campers do every summer. For the rest of the month of April, we are going to read daily in the book of Mark. Will you join us?

We are going to read a chapter each day, and Sundays will be days to catch up, read other scripture along with our respective church communities, or simply let the words we’ve already read soak in as we listen for God’s voice. Sometimes we may share our reflections, and we’d love to hear your thoughts, too!

Readings for Week 2: April 20th - 25th

Readings for Week 3: April 27th - May 1st

Every Camp DeSoto camper is invited to read one of the four gospel books during her month at Camp. Girls who read from their gospel everyday with the exception of two days receive a special bookmark at the end of the month to celebrate the habit they have built. Junior campers do not have to finish a book, as long as they read everyday. Intermediate and Senior campers and Staff are encouraged to read everyday and complete a gospel book by the end of the term.

This long-standing practice at Camp is not about performing Christianity or being a “good Christian.” It is not about getting points with God or making ourselves more “holy.” It’s not even about learning how to be a Christian and getting instructions for life.

Instead it is about getting caught up in the stories of Jesus’s life and discovering all the wonderful, interesting, reassuring, and even confusing things about Jesus and they way he loves. It is about recognizing the beauty and poetry within the pages of the Bible, as well as the challenges and difficulties it presents. We want girls to get curious and ask questions and seek God. We want girls to hear and accept the invitation God offers them to go on a grand adventure! We want them to discover and fall in love with the letters, poems, histories, stories, parables, genealogies, songs, and mysteries of God that Christians have been telling and retelling for thousands of years.

As we read the book of Mark together, we hope the same things for you, too.